


the best laid plans

by thedevilchicken



Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Hot Springs & Onsen, Ice Skating, M/M, Scheming, Sharing a Bed, Threesome - M/M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-07-24
Updated: 2017-07-24
Packaged: 2018-12-03 22:45:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,443
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11541984
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/thedevilchicken/pseuds/thedevilchicken
Summary: Victor has a plan. Yuri reluctantly agrees.





	the best laid plans

**Author's Note:**

  * For [dance_across](https://archiveofourown.org/users/dance_across/gifts).



When they got in touch and told Yuri their plan, he told them they were even bigger idiots than he'd thought they were before. And that was saying something. 

Of course, Victor had never known how to take no for an answer and, technically speaking, Yuri hadn't actually said no. He guessed that was his fatal mistake because he was pretty sure that if he'd said no and sounded anything like halfway convincing, Yuuri would've probably gotten Victor to lay off of it and leave him alone, but what he told them was they were idiots and he had more important things to do with his time. And he had. Really. He had things to do. He wasn't interested in being part of their dumb plan.

Then Victor asked again. And Victor asked again. And Victor asked _again_ , for months and months, on Facebook and on Instagram and on Twitter and by email and by Skype, and there were texts and there were phone calls and there were voicemails whenever Yuri was dodging Victor's calls - and that was pretty much all the time, in the end. He'd just sit there in his room with his feet up on the desk and watch the phone vibrate its way toward the edge with a really unflattering photo of Victor right in the middle of a triple axel all lit up on the screen, wondering idly if he'd lean over and stop it before it fell or if he'd let it go. It never got that close, so he never did find out.

Any normal person would've just given up, but he guessed Victor had never really been normal. He'd always been exceptional, which was to say he'd always been pretty much enough to drive any guy mad. Yuri had always had a short fuse, so it was a pretty crappy combination.

He avoided them at the Rostelecom Cup. He avoided them at that year's Grand Prix final. He avoided them at Worlds. They were mostly pretty easy to avoid 'cause they weren't competing by then - they'd both retired before Yuri had turned eighteen and he was twenty-one at that point, and he guessed that made the two of them...well, whatever, they were _old_. Too old to get out there and skate competitively, at least, and that was what mattered, whereas Yuri definitely still had a few good years left in him. A few good, _long_ years.

Sometimes they turned up to watch the competition and before that year he'd kind of enjoyed it when they did that, not that he would've breathed a word of it to them - it was sort of like the old days, every time that they were there at the edge of the rink to watch him, like they were all still back in St. Petersburg training together. Sometimes they turned up to commentate, or one of them did or the other one did, and that year Yuuri was a whole lot easier to stomach than Victor was 'cause he didn't keep bringing up The Plan. Yuuri knew when to just shut the hell up and eat his katsudon, even if he did give him quizzical looks over their bowls. Sometimes, it was almost like they were friends now that they weren't rivals - sometimes, Yuri might've even enjoyed his company, even if he didn't really say it. Now Yuuri was a bit more laid back and not just a great big ball of stupid nerves, he was pretty cool, or maybe they'd just both grown up.

Then, in the end, the season was over. Yuri guessed he had no more excuses; he got on a plane and he turned up back there in Hasetsu, just like he'd promised he would when he finally had the time, though Victor had made him promise while drunk on a tragic combination of sake and cheap vodka so that seemed pretty unfair somehow. Still, the Katsukis had the same room waiting for him that he'd used all those years ago and there was katsudon on the table for him when he'd washed up after the trip, and Victor smiled at him, silently, leaning forward on his elbows, watching him closely the whole time he ate, almost as mesmerized by him as the poodle was by the food. Yuri pretended not to notice; he talked to Yuuri instead. He'd been practicing his Japanese and Yuuri said he was getting pretty good. Yuri might've even believed him.

"Have you given it any more thought, Yuri?" Victor asked, when he was done eating. Yuri had to admit he wasn't surprised they were back to that again - it was like Victor had gotten stuck on repeat sometime in the past six to eight months.

"No," Yuri replied, and he stepped up from the table. "I'm tired. I'm going to sleep." Then he disappeared down the hall to his room. 

"Don't you think you'd like it, Yuri?" Victor asked, the next morning over breakfast. He probably thought he sounded casual; he really didn't. 

"No," Yuri replied, and he stepped up from the table. "I think I'll go take a run." Then he disappeared outside to take a run by the sea.

"How do you know if you don't try it?" Victor asked, that afternoon at lunch. It was a crappy argument; Yuri didn't say he didn't need to try under-rotating his salchow to know he wouldn't like it, but that was what he thought. From the look on Yuuri's face, he was thinking roughly the same thing.

"Trust me, I know," Yuri replied, and he stepped up from the table. "I'm going to take a bath." And he disappeared out into the onsen. 

When the door opened after he was in the bath, he thought it'd be Victor come to press the point again; he was already scowling in anticipation but it turned out it was Yuuri, quiet and looking half lost without his glasses, and he stepped into the water right there next to him. Once upon a time, Yuri would've hated that. Once upon a time, Yuuri would've looked a whole lot more awkward being naked around him, or indeed around anyone. Yuri didn't hate it, though, and Yuuri still looked awkward, but maybe only 25% so that was a pretty steep improvement. Yuri guessed Victor really had rubbed off on him - they'd been together for years by then, sickeningly sweet together every time he saw them though Mila always said the way he grumbled about them meant he was jealous, so Yuri figured that made sense. 

"Why does he think it's such a great idea anyway?" Yuri asked, irritable, glancing at him sideways, and Yuuri shrugged. 

"I think he misses you," he replied. "And you know Victor, he always likes to be surprising."

Yuri narrowed his eyes. He turned his head and looked at Yuuri from under his damp fringe. 

"And what do _you_ think?" he asked. 

Yuuri frowned for a second like he was really thinking about it, like he was thinking about it so hard Yuri could pretty much hear the cogs turning in his stupid head. Then he shrugged again, making the water splash around his shoulders. 

"I think it could be fun," he said, and then they sat there another twenty minutes in total silence, soaking. Yuri had no idea what he'd expected Yuuri to say, but it wasn't that because the stupid plan just had to be _Victor's_ stupid plan, not Yuuri's. And as he sat there longer, he started to figure that if Yuuri thought maybe it was a good idea as well as Victor...maybe it wasn't such a dumb idea after all. Or at least if it was dumb then it might be kinda fun, too.

"Okay, let's do it," Yuri said, at dinner, trying to sound grudging about it. Victor beamed at him over the tabletop. Yuuri gave him a little nod and a pleased little smile. Yuri lowered his head and hid a smile of his own behind his chopsticks as he ate. 

In the morning, they'd start practice. With the three of them skating a routine together, Yuri figured that year's _Onsen on Ice_ might just be the best yet. 

\--

Practice started the next day. At least it did for Yuri. 

Victor sent him a video of his part in the routine while they were all sitting at the table over breakfast, looking obnoxiously pleased with himself that Yuri had finally agreed, and Yuri watched it on his phone, alone in his room after his morning run. The part was elegant, but he guessed Victor's routines had never exactly lacked elegance so that wasn't a huge surprise to him. What was surprising were the gaps, the few seconds here and there where it was pretty clear how something was missing and all Victor did was get himself ready for the next position. 

Yuri could imagine himself skating it, though, as he watched Victor move across the screen; he could feel the change of edge here, the extension through the arms there, jumps he could land in his sleep but he guessed a near certainty of a clean routine was exactly the point of an exhibition. And besides, he was pretty impressed that Victor was even still jumping at all at his ripe old age of thirty-something. He was practically ancient, in figure-skating terms. He was practically ancient anyway, even if he was still annoyingly attractive. Everyone still cooed.

Yuri went to the rink in the morning and Yuuko let him in with a hug that he only briefly considered shrugging off. He skated through the routine a couple of times, broke it down to its components, made sure he got it right, and then she put on the music and he skated along to the right sort of tempo. His solo parts were pretty simple but they'd look good, he guessed - Victor never did anything that didn't look good, after all - but the gaps bothered him. He guessed he understood why, because he guessed he understood what was missing. It didn't take a genius. It didn't take an Olympic champion, the way both of them had been.

"So, which one of you idiots is planning to lift me?" he asked when they sat down for lunch, his eyes narrowed. "I'm guessing it's Victor." 

It turned out he was right about that. He told himself the way his chest tightened just a fraction and pulse picked up a notch meant he _wasn't_ looking forward to it, not that he was. He knew he was lying to himself. He hadn't thought about much else since the second he'd figured it out.

The next day, they practiced at Minako's ballet studio. They dragged out a crash mat and they all stretched to get ready and as Victor talked and Yuuri listened and Yuri pretended he had no interest in either of them, it was kinda like old times back in St. Petersburg. They had Minako for the ballet stuff instead of Lilia so really all they were missing was a substitute Yakov, or so Yuri thought until practice really began. Then it was nothing like St. Petersburg at all. 

Yuri pulled back his hair and tied it in place and they moved over to the mat, and Victor lifted him, or at least he tried. They collapsed onto the mat; the first time did _not_ go well. 

They tried again, Minako giving them instructions, Yuri fighting to keep his arms locked and his back arched, and they fell again. Yuuri laughed. Yuri glared. He wasn't used to getting things so wrong, and he wasn't totally sure he could just blame Victor. 

They tried again, and again, and _again_. Victor maybe didn't have the stamina he'd used to, though stamina had never really been his forte, but it turned out he was physically stronger - he had a bit more muscle through his arms and shoulders, just enough so Yuri could see it but not enough to screw up his lines. Yuri, for his part, had never really grown too much at all after his first senior win - maybe an inch, but not much more. Mila still liked to tease him about it, and JJ did amongst other things, but Yuri couldn't say he really cared - being small didn't mean he wasn't strong, and he was still just as flexible as ever. He _would_ get it. He was determined. That was something he and Victor shared.

They tried again. Victor yanked off his shirt sometime after the first twenty or so tries and Yuri cursed under his breath and they tried _again_ , and this time it stuck. They were hand to hand, their elbows pretty much locked out, Yuri perched in the air above Victor's head. Yuuri grinned at them. Minako applauded, then she said, "Now do it ten more times, just like that." 

"She's as bad as Lilia," Yuri muttered, looking down at Victor as Victor looked up at him. Victor brought him down. Then they did it ten more times, just like that. 

Once they had the overhead, the other couple of lifts Victor had choreographed were easy by comparison - okay, so it was weird, Victor's hands on him in awkward places, the small of his back, high up one inner thigh, but Yuuri came over to correct their positions and they were working so hard that weird didn't really seem to matter. By the end of the day, Yuri was exhausted and Victor looked like he was nearly ready to collapse and Yuuri had gotten off lightly so they made him carry their gear all the way back to the Katsukis' place. He didn't complain. When they stopped a couple of minutes to pull a quick lift on the bridge around sunset, Yuuri just looked weirdly happy. Pushed up in the air over Victor's head, the sea breeze in his hair, Yuri guessed he kind of understood that; when he came back down and Victor wrapped one arm around his shoulders as they walked, he was pleased he'd come. Maybe they were working hard, but it felt good.

"Sleep with us, Yurio," Victor said after dinner, standing in the doorway of the room he and Yuuri shared. Yuri wrinkled his nose and called him a pervert and he walked away, shaking his head. Sometimes Victor's idea of teambuilding was pretty weird; he chose not to think about what else he could've meant. 

"Sleep with us, Yurio," Victor said, after dinner the next night, after another full day's work in Minako's studio. Yuri grimaced at him and he told him he'd rather sleep outside than sleep with them, and then he walked away again. He guessed Victor was nothing if not persistent; Yuri tried not to think about the persistent rumors he'd heard about the two of them, or about the two of them sometimes being _three_ of them instead. He told himself that was nothing he was interested in. He told himself that had nothing to do with why he was there.

"Sleep with us, Yurio," Victor said, after dinner the night after that, after their first practice on the ice. They'd fallen. They'd fallen _a lot_. They were all bruised, and not just him and Victor - they'd somehow managed to drag Yuuri down, too, in a mess of limbs and skates and snickering before they'd gotten up and tried again and made it work, slowly, bit by bit. Yuri crossed his arms over his chest and he cocked his head and he told Victor to go get his beauty sleep because he looked like he needed it. 

Victor said the same thing the next night, and the night after that, and Yuri told him he'd rather go try outdrinking Minako or he had important tweets to finish up or some other kind of nonsense that all boiled down to _no_. And in the morning, every morning, they went back out to the rink and they fired up the music and they did it again, and again, and _again_ , till it felt really close to natural, till Victor's hands on him felt easier if still not totally easy, till the spins and the jumps side-by-side with Yuuri were perfectly in sync. It wasn't like St. Petersburg because he was older, he was more aware, his stupid body wanted more of everything they did, and so he tried to focus on the work instead of the way Yuuri's lines hadn't gotten lazy since he'd retired, or how warm Victor's hands felt through his clothes. They had a show to put on. He didn't need to get distracted.

The previous few years of _Onsen on Ice_ had been pretty good - Yuri hadn't expected it to be a yearly event after that first year but that was how it'd worked out. They'd had some local competitions, a few exhibition routines from old friends they'd invited to take part, a couple of scenes from Phichit's new show, but Yuri found he was actually looking forward to being a part of this one, his first since the first. The biggest surprise was how much fun it was. 

Victor asked again the next night, after Yuri had spent the afternoon off shopping and practicing his Japanese on unsuspecting fishermen as he passed by. Victor asked again the night after that, and Yuri cursed under his breath and told Yuuri to keep his stupid husband under control, but Yuuri just shrugged, almost looking amused. 

Victor asked again the night after that, after the costumes had arrived and they'd done their first run-through wearing them. Yuri sighed and stalked off to bed but the happy couple's dog was on it and the most reaction he got that damned poodle to make was to lift its head before it went right back to sleep again. So he went back down the hall to Yuuri and Victor's room. 

"Your dog's in my bed," he said, his hands on his hips standing there in the doorway. 

Victor muttered and turned over and he went straight back to sleep just like the dog had, but Yuuri turned back the sheets and shuffled over. 

"Sleep with us," he said, with one eye open, and coming from Yuuri it almost seemed like a sensible solution. So, against his better judgement, Yuri crawled into bed with the two of them. He fell asleep to the not totally tuneful drone of Victor's snore. 

He wasn't sure if he was disappointed or not that all they did after that was sleep.

\--

The next morning, he woke with Victor's arm around his waist until he managed to shrug him off and flee the scene. 

The next morning, he woke with Yuuri's hand against his chest until he slipped out of the bed and made a beeline for the bathroom. 

The _next_ morning, he woke sandwiched in between the two of them. It was driving him mad, spending so much time around them, eating and sleeping and working around each other all day long. He didn't even know how the hell they'd wound up sharing a bed on a regular basis because that really hadn't been his plan. He _really_ didn't want to think the things he'd thought about before, back in St. Petersburg, at the rink at practice, in the showers, in his bed at night. He really didn't want to think about the two of them, or about himself there with them, hands and mouths and hot, bare skin. That had only ever been an angry teenage fantasy.

Yuri woke the next morning as someone brushed his hair back from his face. He opened his eyes; he'd assumed it'd be Victor, somehow, lacking boundaries just like always, but he found Yuuri was lying there peering at him. 

"I didn't mean to wake you," Yuuri said, quietly, like he was trying not to wake up Victor, too. 

Yuri shrugged. He rubbed his face, trying not to think how much different Yuuri always looked without his glasses. He tried not to think about all the times he'd imagined taking those glasses off him, finding out what it was that Victor saw in him. The show was two days away then, and he should've been concentrating on it, but when he looked at him again, stretched out next to him, so close by, it was pretty hard to think about skating. It was hard to think about much of anything at all. 

"I've heard rumors," Yuri said. 

"About what?" Yuuri replied.

"About the two of you." Yuuri raised his brows. Yuri did the same to match. "Are they true?"

"You mean about me and Victor, and maybe other people, too?" Yuri nodded; Yuuri shook his head. "No," he said. "They're not true. We've never done that." 

"Then what am I doing here?" Yuri gestured, at the futon, at the three of them on it. "You're telling me it's just for the skating? Do you think I'm stupid?"

Yuuri frowned. "I think Victor misses you sometimes," he said, like that was somehow a real answer, and Victor snored as if on cue. "I think I do, too." 

With that, Yuri flung back the sheets and he left the bed. He wasn't in the mood for the happy couple's games, especially since it looked like none of them were using the same rulebook. He was silent through breakfast, and then they went to the rink.

Every time Victor touched him, he flinched. Every time Yuuri looked at him, he winced. Yuuri asked him what was wrong and he snapped at him, he told him, "It's pretty clear you two don't need me here, how about you do it without me?" Somehow, Yuuri had the balls to look wounded. Victor just looked surprised.

Yuuko frowned as he left the ice and he yanked off his skates and he left them all there; he couldn't be there, not like that, sticking out like a sore thumb, rolling along like a third fucking wheel. He resented it. He was angry with himself for going along with it in the first place, for going back to Hasetsu in the first place, and really, screw it, _screw it_ , he really did have better things to do with his time than getting dicked around by two guys who didn't think of him that way. They'd never thought of him like that, not the way he'd thought of them. _That_ , at least, was just like St. Petersburg. 

He told himself he was going to leave. He shoved his stuff into his suitcase, growled at himself when it wouldn't fit and he actually had to fold his clothes, and he told himself he was going to take a cab to the airport and get on the first plane that would get him the hell away from there - it didn't matter where it was going 'cause he figured he'd still get back to Russia, somehow, in the end. Except he slept instead with the door firmly closed, exhausted as he was, wiped out like he was, and he told himself he'd leave in the morning. Another night really wouldn't matter at all. 

They weren't there in the morning. He thought maybe that was just for the best and he had breakfast on his own, and he called the cab, and he grabbed his case, and he got in and he slammed the door. He grimaced. He scowled. The problem was, he didn't wind up at the airport; in spite of himself, he wound up back at the rink. 

They were on the ice, skating together, skating the routine that Victor had put together for the three of them. They were graceful, and they moved well even as old as they were then, but Yuri found himself frowning as he watched because, he guessed, watching them then, that was the point when he finally got it. As he watched them move, he could see how they'd built the whole routine around him. He could see the gaps where he was missing. He could see how Victor had bulked up so he could lift him; he could see how Yuuri had adjusted the tempo of his spins to his so they'd match each other as they moved across the ice. He could see exactly where it was that he fit in between them, and where it fell apart because he wasn't there. They really did miss him. They'd done this for him. If he'd just taken a minute to stand back and watch, to get a view of the big picture instead of blowing up just like he always did, he'd've seen that all along. 

"You know it looks dumb without me, right?" he yelled, his hands cupped around his mouth, loud enough that they could hear him over the top of the music. Yuuko killed the sound, and the two of them skated over. They got off of the ice and they went to him.

It was Yuuri that hugged him first, then Victor wrapped his stupid arms around the both of them. It was Victor that kissed him first, leaning down and catching him off guard, then Yuuri brushed back his hair and grinned at the both of them. Yuri smiled before he could help himself. He figured maybe it didn't matter if it was like St. Petersburg or not - there was no point looking back when he could look forward.

They skated the routine for a sold-out crowd the next night after that, and Yuri didn't flinch even once as Victor's hands were on him, and he didn't wince when Yuuri looked at him. And afterwards, they went back to the onsen and back to Victor and Yuuri's room and Yuri took off Yuuri's glasses. Victor took off his clothes and then watched as Yuri and Yuuri undressed each other. Maybe the two of them had never been three before, but Yuri guessed that didn't necessarily mean they'd never wanted it; Yuri figured maybe that meant they'd just never found the right way to ask him before.

The triplets' video of their performance went viral in pretty close to thirty seconds; years later, Yuri still remembered every second of it. If he needed a reminder of what happened after, Victor and Yuuri were glad to oblige.

\--

It was a stupid plan, and it turned out the two of them really were even bigger idiots than he'd thought they were before. He'd avoided them for months because of it.

But that night in bed, between them, with Victor's mouth on him and Yuuri's hands, Victor's hands and Yuuri's mouth, he couldn't think of any place he'd rather be.


End file.
